He retained sufficient caution to refrain from going to his father’s house in Richmond when he reached London.  His father’s parting words lingered unpleasantly in his mind to serve as a warning against the folly of that course.  The same unusual prudence compelled him to leap out of a taxi-cab as soon as he had leapt into it.  For himself he did not care, but he had to be careful for Sisily’s sake.  So he clambered on top of a ’bus with his suit case.  The same sobering feeling of responsibility directed his choice of an hotel when he descended from the vehicle into the seething streets.  He chose a quiet small place off Charing Cross, and booked a room.  After a bath and some lunch he went out to a neighbouring bookstall and bought a railway time-table.  The next train to Charleswood left Charing Cross in less than half an hour.  He walked across to the station, purchased a ticket, and took his seat.  In a few minutes the train started.

Now that he was actually on the way of putting his idea to the test his former doubts assailed him again with renewed force, but he refused to listen to them.  He told himself that a dying woman’s idea was not likely to be wrong, and that he would find Sisily at Charleswood.  She was sure to be there, because she had nowhere else to go.  So he reasoned, or sought to reason, until the train slowed down at the station which held the solution of his hopes and fears.

It was a small wayside station at which he alighted—­a mere hamlet set in the slumberous calm of English rural scenery, passed by express trains with a roar of derision by day and contemptuously winking tail-lights at night.  On the dark green background of the distant heights an eruption of new red bungalows threatened to spread and destroy the beauty of Charleswood at no remote date.  But at present the sylvan charm of the spot was unspoiled.  Its meadows and fields seemed to lie happily unconscious of the contagion flaming on the billowy hills.

The porter who emerged from a kind of wooden kennel and clattered up to Charles to collect his ticket, stared hard when the young man asked if Mrs. Pursill lived at Charleswood.  He appeared to give the matter deep thought before nodding affirmatively, and accompanied him to the station entrance to point out an old house lying behind a strip of white fence and a clump of dark-green trees half-way up a distant hill (not where the bungalows were cropping up, but in the opposite direction), with the intimation that it was the residence of the lady he was looking for.  He then watched Charles down the rambling village street until he was out of sight.

It was a long walk—­more than a mile—­before Charles reached the white fence and the group of trees which shielded the house behind dark-green foliage.  He caught a glimpse of partly shuttered windows peeping through this leafy screen, but it was not until he had passed through the trees that he had a clear view of the house.